ITIL 4 – why was it needed?

ITIL 4 – why was it needed?

In this video blog (Vlog), ITIL trainer Bob Denham gives us his view on why ITIL® was updated. He talks about those things that triggered the move from ITIL 3 to ITIL 4, and why that matters.

"We're quite often asked, why ITIL 4 was needed? The main reason was that ITIL 3 had been around for a long time. It was last refreshed in 2011 and was very much not up to date with the changes in technology." (Get up to date with ITIL here).

ITIL needed to keep up-to-date with new technology

"So ITIL needed to keep in touch with the new technology, to become more up to date, and to reflect the way the whole of the IT industry was moving. There've been a lot of changes between 2011 in the way that IT works!

"That was the main trigger really for looking at ITIL, looking at what was in it, and trying to bring it more up to date, more aligned with people's ways of working – especially with development and specifically new methods that are emerging. Some of these methods had been around for a long time, but had become much more widely adopted by a broad range of industries and functions.

"There was a lot of consultancy around the ITIL update. A lot of information was gathered from different organisations, from public sector, private sector, small organisations, large multinationals, to bring together the value that ITIL can actually deliver to the whole IT service management arena."

Making ITIL more aligned

"ITIL 4 was developed to align the ITIL framework more closely with current ways of working; for instance, the new technologies and the new terminology that became available and started being used. For example, in ITIL 3 there was very little if any reference to cloud computing and there was very little reference to Agile ways of working. These things are now much more embedded in today's marketplace; they have become a mainstream and accepted way of doing things. The world is changing fast, and IT needs to be able to pivot and adapt to respond to these changes and make the most of new opportunities. This is key to ensuring organisations serve their customers well, stay competitive, and attract the talent they need to continue to grow.

"More and more organisations are looking at getting cloud services, or using cloud services, whether for software as a service or a platform as a service, providing infrastructure. All of these different areas are now becoming much more prevalent within the market place. So that's been the real trigger for ITIL 4!"

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Find out more about our ITIL 4 Foundation Qualification here. If you already hold an ITIL 3 qualification and are looking to upskill to ITIL 4 then our ITIL Managing Professional Transition Qualification will be of more interest.